Introduction to Deleuze: Difference and Repetition

[Music]

Jil dollars as Todd may put set is a

philosopher of new possibilities of how

we might think of things in ways that

would open up new regions for living

most simply he's a philosopher of

difference of how things change over

time

for this reason he's usually referred to

as a postmodern or post structural

philosopher lumped him with other French

theorists like Michel Foucault and

Jacque Derrida there are both big

similarities and big differences though

for me and this applies to other

post-structuralist s-- thinking and de

leurs in terms is to conceptualize a

radical freedom that as humans we are

free to change the world in ways that

don't always seem possible his work has

been used in many disciplines from

education reform politics history and

even hard sciences this is the key

difference between him and other post

modernists his work is filled with

references to science biology geology

evolution where someone like Derrida

emphasizes how we understand the world

primarily through language and text

Delors is a materialist and monist

in other words everything in the

universe both physical and thinking is

connected I'll introduce Talos is

thought through his 1968 book different

and repetition the laws of thinking

could be set to articulate the

ontological foundations that's the

question of what there is at the most

basic level of phenomena of other

thinkers referred to as post

structuralist and post modernists and by

the way while those two terms are

sometimes used interchangeably I use

post structuralist as referring to

theory and theorists that mostly

emphasize language and postmodernist

as a more catch-all term that loosely

refers to thinkers a period and the

culture that critiques modernity anyway

Michel Foucault for example points to

high meaning and

frames of social truth change over time

constituting new subjectivity is

condition both through power and

knowledge the idea of discipline for

example or how we think about mental

illness has changed over time while

Jacque Derrida argues that language is

unstable and meaning is always deferred

so we can never really pin anything down

both point to a world or a human

subjectivity that is in flux moving

changing dollars it might be said

provides the ontological or even the pre

ontological foundations for these sorts

of peace thinkers like Foucault Derrida

and originally Nietzsche there is no

stable ontology of human nature as I

talked about in a previous video

Nietzsche shows how concepts like good

and evil have changed over time again as

Todd may has phrased it ontological

matters are in reality historical

matters parading in ontological gob

while much of Western philosophy has

focused on an ontology of what there is

Delors wants to account for how things

change in other words to account for

difference over time for movement he's

largely responding to philosophers like

Aristotle and Kant who both

conceptualized stable categories of

thought and of substance for Kant for

example we have the natural ability to

rationally judge things by quantity

quality relation modality for Aristotle

there is substance doing having we're

thinking of the very basics of the world

okay bear with me this isn't that

important to start to understand what

Toulouse is saying what he's really

doing is criticizing thinkers which

turns out to be the vast majority of

Western philosophy who emphasize that

which is stable or eternal over that

which is in movement and in flux think

about how we judge things how we think

about what things are we can quantify

and qualify say

leaves here are four they all have a

similar shape color smell they all grow

in a similar place in similar dirt they

look the same they are then of the same

species we can judge that this is an oak

leaf we could make a list of the

qualities anything has literally

anything television has a screen can

pick up broadcasts has a power supply we

can try and think of the things that are

essential to that thing and here's the

problem if we just do that then we

cannot account for change of how certain

things develop into new things we need a

way to understand how loosely television

evolved into say Netflix or YouTube the

evolution didn't come from anything

inside the category of television it

comes from the Telegraph the military

development of the internet the phone

line coding microchips all of these

things converged into something new in

exactly the same way that new species

have evolved they evolved in relation to

their environment and other species for

Delors it's the spaces between things

the differences between all of these

things that create the possibilities for

newness in fact all things are defined

by the differences between them this is

as with most post-structuralism

influenced by socios belief that meaning

is a product of the differences between

words and signifiers we understand what

blue is because of its relationship to

red yellow green not because of any real

tangible relationship between this and

the word blue Delors is philosophy

builds upon Spinoza's monism that

everything is connected in fact the

world is so complicated so connected so

mysterious that there are potentially an

infinite number of possibilities in the

world not right now but

potentially in theory may cites the

example of origami an infinite number of

shapes on an infinite number of pieces

of paper folding moving changing dollars

writes that no two grains of dust are

absolutely identical no two hands have

the same distinctive points no two

typewriters have the same strike no two

revolvers score their bullets in the

same manner difference is everywhere

indifference and repetition Delors his

goal is to theorize a definition of

difference in itself opposed to

repetition when we think we repeat when

I think of the leaf I repeat something

of the actual leaf in my mind when I

engage in that judgment between the four

leaves I have to repeat four times to

come to that conclusion when we do this

we are generalizing we are looking for

resemblances we know what greenness is

even if the shades are different we know

what that shape is even though it's

slightly different

generalizing is the most basic action of

thought and to generalize we must repeat

repetition contributes to generality but

in every repetition something distinct

occurs no leaf is actually a repetition

a precise exact copy they are all

different in color in shape even in

position and in time and the thought of

the leaf is again different and the next

time I think of the leaf it's different

and the next time newness is inscribed

in every moment each repetition is

something new in space and time it has

no equal or equivalent while carrying

something from the first every act of

nature repeats with novelty and every

repetition of every thought creates

something new in the mind which

contemplates it but here is the main

point it's the very difference in every

repetition that accounts for change for

newness for evolution for creativity

if we only conceptualize the repetition

the representation we fail to understand

how different changes concepts and

things take the movement between

television and YouTube hypothetically

the person who invents YouTube looks at

the television than his computer then

uses the Internet in his mind he repeats

all these things but he reorganizes them

he repeats them differently he repeats

the idea of television while

reorganizing it with the idea of what is

different about a television and the

computer but it's not just the

television and the computer differences

that bear on the process are many

language tools education code the innate

biological aptitude of the inventor all

of these things repeat themselves in

some way in every act towards the new

similarly when a baby is born it is both

the repetition of genes DNA blood and a

response to differences like the size of

the womb or the environment it's born

into a plant repeats itself through

seeds but differences like the intensity

of the wind rain and Sun animal

interactions all have a bearing when

thinking a person repeats things in some

way we rationalize and we judge we

identify things see analogies between

things see things opposed to each other

and judge things that are the same we

organize and reorganize a plane of

possibility we do something new but we

also repeat something old it's not

enough like Kant to say that rationality

thinks as de leur says something in the

world forces us to think we might

organize questions in our mind or create

goals or have plans but they arise from

somewhere real they are presented to us

by the world and we reorganize the

variables to try and create solutions

there is a kind of map of things to

repeat and things we could make

different this map the innate

potentiality of newness is what de leurs

calls the virtual virtuality

similarities to potentiality the

universe moves bodies move concepts move

all in relation to each other they

repeat but in every repetition different

combinations of differences potentialize

de leurs writes that the more that

living matter complexify z-- the more it

transforms this virtual into spontaneous

action and unforeseen movements the

virtual is a product of the intensities

between differences the lines of flight

between them the virtual is determined

by the differential relations between

what de leurs terms ideas which are made

up of multiplicities again you have

television microchipped the internet

hands eyes a keyboard the differences in

relations between them point towards new

lines of flight there are many

potentialities in any moment though lots

of configurations the results is also

random contingent YouTube could have

easily been a different new

configuration of all these possibilities

a different person a different name a

different set up ideas are made up of

multiplicities combinations of

representations and differences

assemblages like bone structure or

geology are part of the multiplicity but

the multiplicity precedes the actual

idea it defines and creates its

possibilities let's shift from YouTube

to World War 2 something you can do with

YouTube multiplicities are presented to

us in pre organized forms a group of

techs on World War 2 the University

studying it a conference on world war ii

diaries the bodies of the dead the

photographs all of the differences

between them point to disparate lines of

flight for new potentialities upon which

the historian might write a new history

the virtual is like a coil it's not

possibility though it precedes

possibility it creates the conditions

for possibility each possibility in any

given moment is conditioned by lines of

imminence that give it its shape if we

acknowledge that possible

he's due spring from somewhere somewhere

rue then the virtual is that play the

virtual is the surplus of the present

moment of any fixed identity and it's

grounded in the spaces between things in

their differences de leurs rights

everywhere couples and polarities

presuppose bundles and networks

organized opposition's presuppose

radiations in all directions

stereoscopic images form no more than an

even and flat opposition but they depend

on something quite different an

arrangement of coexistent tiered mobile

planes and disparate nurse within an

original debt everywhere the depth of

difference is primary this perspective

strips post-modernism of its vulgar

reputation of claiming that anything

goes that leads to a radical relativism

the virtual is very real very much

conditioned it only presents itself

through a finite number of possibilities

at any given time but it does guarantee

the opening of new possibilities

guarantees the possibility of continual

change and freedom fillers is a

notoriously complicated thinker and he's

responding to a lot of other complicated

thinkers and complex ideas and

admittedly I'm no expert

I've read all of difference and

repetition and a lot of other delivers

over the past few months and it all fits

together as a system that's heavily

influenced by people like Spinoza and

Kant who it's a good idea to understand

before you start reading delivers these

though are the concepts to understand to

appreciate the rest of Delors work I'll

expand on this further at some point

maybe next week although I might take a

break but on the schedule at some point

will be videos on the resume and the

Oedipus and hopefully a more in-depth

look at his relationship with can't I'd

also like to make a lighter video on

the philosopher of the 68 movements I'll

leave you though with a quote I like

about two metaphorical figures of

difference and repetition that of the

poet who speaks in the name of a

creative power capable of overturning

all orders and representations in order

to affirm difference in the state of a

permanent revolution which characterizes

eternal return and that of the

politician who is above all concern to

deny that which differs so as to

conserve or prolong an established

historical order or to establish a

historical order which already calls

forth in the world the forms of its

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